Page 2320 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 August 2022
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It is essential that we, as a government and an Assembly, take action to deter violence against women and children and to strengthen the responses available when this type of violence does occur. The reforms in this bill are one aspect of that work and will strengthen the legal frameworks to better protect victim-survivors.
In that vein, I note Mr Cain’s earlier remarks, where he talked about the fact that this bill does not address issues such as prevention. Minister Berry might be here to speak to those matters. The government has been very clear that we have a range of responses. Minister Berry’s work in leading other aspects of this is important, and we are working together as a government. My responsibility as the Attorney is to deal with some of the legislative reforms; whereas Minister Berry will take the lead on service reforms. I agree with Mr Cain that we need all of those elements, but I think he is wrong in observing that this bill does not address those other elements, because it cannot and it is not the forum to do it.
I do note, however, that he referenced restorative justice. A couple of years ago now, the restorative justice system was extended to include both family and domestic violence matters and also sexual offence matters. The feedback I have had from the restorative justice team is that that reform has been very well received. Some people who have been affected by those crimes have gone through that system and the responses have been very positive. I thought it was worth reflecting on that broader response. We agree that a broader response is required. This bill is probably not the forum for some of those other matters.
The Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety recently conducted a public inquiry into the bill. I welcome their recommendation that the Assembly pass the bill. As I said, when speaking on the government response, we also welcome the public discourse about domestic and family violence that the inquiry encouraged. In particular, we acknowledge the finding by the committee of the value of these reforms.
I will now discuss each of the amendments in the bill in more detail as we move through this debate. The bill amends the Crimes Act to introduce an aggravated family violence offence scheme. This is phase 2 of the ACT government’s commitment to address the 2020 Court of Appeal decision in R v UG. In that case the court found that, absent a statutory provision, there is no place for a separate sentencing regime that applies to offenders who commit family violence offences, whether it be a more lenient or a more severe sentencing regime.
New sections 48C, 72AA, 72EA and 116 of the Crimes Act are the operative provisions which establish the aggravated offence scheme. The scheme applies to select offences. The offences which have been included are those which are most commonly committed in a family violence context, recognising the wide-ranging nature of domestic and family violence. These include physical offences such as common assault, sexual offences such as sexual intercourse without consent, and non-physical offences such as non-consensual distribution of intimate images and stalking.
An offence will be an aggravated offence and will attract a higher maximum penalty if it involves family violence. The definition of “family violence” for this purpose is broad and includes behaviour such as physical, sexual, emotional, psychological or
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